At the Boston Globe, Columnists Do the Jobs of Reporters

Well, actually there was this article I liked today (on how Tom didn't pick Gabs as his running mate because he wouldn't release his tax records... so Tommy Boy picked St. Fleur instead) - and it was real news, for a change. After all, when it isn't about Deval, apparently the news room doesn't have to put in any coded words and prejudicial reporting.

The real fun in today's Globe is Eileen McNamara's column, apparently she has a good memory. I always wondered why no one in the media mentioned the fact that Tom Reilly is historically a very negative campaigner. Maybe it's par for the course, but when they go back to 1999 to look at Devals record at United, you'd think they'd go back one year earlier to analyze Tom Reilly's race against Lois Pines.

Apparently that's why the Globe hires columnists - you know, to do the job of journalists...

Reilly might not be rich, but it is Reilly, not Patrick or Chris Gabrieli, who is corporate Boston's favorite Democrat. They have been with him from the start, his humble rental apartment in Watertown notwithstanding. Back when Pines was being so inappropriately ``aggressive," a group of business executives invited some peers to meet their pal Reilly at the Downtown Club in the Financial District.

``We are concerned that this all-important office will be in hands that will make it more bureaucratic and more regulatory with detrimental implications for the state's business climate," read the letter of invitation that was signed by, among others, Tom May of Boston Edison, Bill VanFassen of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and Wayne Budd of Bell Atlantic, all industries regulated by the attorney general's office.

With those friends and that history, Reilly might want to reconsider his misguided efforts to portray Patrick as a tool of the corporate elite. This is Massachusetts; voters have long memories.

Also, props to Eileen for mentioning Vennochi's stellar work on this story. It's a shame real reporters at the Boston Globe didn't... well... do their jobs and follow up on it.